Flightplan
Flightplan | |
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Directed by | Robert Schwentke |
Written by | |
Produced by | Brian Grazer |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Florian Ballhaus |
Edited by | Thom Noble |
Music by | James Horner |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures Distribution |
Release dates |
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Running time | 98 minutes[1] |
Countries |
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Languages |
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Budget | $55 million[2] |
Box office | $223.4 million[3] |
Flightplan is a 2005 mystery psychological thriller film directed by Robert Schwentke from a screenplay written by Peter A. Dowling and Billy Ray. It stars Jodie Foster as Kyle Pratt, a recently widowed American aircraft engineer living in Berlin, who flies back to the U.S. with her daughter and her husband's body. She loses her daughter during the flight and must struggle to find her while proving her sanity at the same time.[N 1] It also features Peter Sarsgaard, Erika Christensen, Kate Beahan, Greta Scacchi, Sean Bean, and Matt Bomer in his film debut.
Distributed by Touchstone Pictures and released theatrically on September 23, 2005, the film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the direction, performances of the cast (particularly Foster's), and the thriller elements of the film but criticized the screenplay. It was also a major commercial success, grossing over $223 million worldwide against a $55 million budget, and received two nominations at the 32nd Saturn Awards; Best Action or Adventure Film, and Best Actress (for Foster).
Plot
Recently widowed
Kyle reveals that her husband died falling from the roof of an
Kyle asks to use the bathroom, where she climbs into the overhead crawl space and sabotages the aircraft's electronics. In the ensuing chaos, she rides a dumbwaiter to the lower freight deck and unlocks David's casket, suspecting Julia to be inside, but finds only her husband's body. Carson escorts her to her seat in handcuffs, and explains that the flight is making an emergency stopover at Goose Bay Airport, in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, where she will be taken into custody.
She pleads with Carson to search the aircraft's hold, and he sneaks down to the freight deck. Removing two explosives and a detonator concealed in David's casket, he plants the explosives in the avionics section. It is revealed that Carson and Stephanie have conspired to hijack the aircraft for a $50 million ransom and frame Kyle; they abducted Julia to cause Kyle to unlock the casket. Carson lies to Rich that Kyle is threatening to bomb the aircraft unless the ransom is wired to a bank account and a G3 aircraft is readied upon landing. He then plans to detonate the explosives, killing Julia, and leave Kyle dead with the detonator in her hand.
Landing in Newfoundland, the airliner is surrounded by
Kyle finds the unconscious Julia but Carson arrives, revealing that he murdered David in order to smuggle the explosives inside his casket and gagged and dumped Julia into the food bin, believing that neither the passengers nor the crew would care enough to notice. Kyle escapes with Julia into the aircraft's non-combustible hold as Carson shoots at her. She detonates the explosives, killing Carson and damaging the aircraft's landing gear, but she and Julia emerge unscathed as the crew realize she had been telling the truth all along. The next morning, in the passenger waiting section of the airport, Captain Rich apologizes to a seated Kyle holding Julia in her arms as Stephanie is led away by FBI agents for her crimes, while another agent informs them that the Berlin mortuary director has also been arrested, adding that they are tracking down another accomplice who erased Julia's record from the boarding list. Kyle silently redeems herself by carrying Julia through the crowd of passengers who realize the truth. As one of the Arab passengers assists Kyle in loading her luggage onto a waiting van, Julia awakens and sleepily asks "Are we there yet?" as they drive away.
Cast
- Jodie Foster as Kyle Pratt, a recently widowed aircraft engineer
- Marlene Lawston as Julia Pratt, Kyle and David's daughter
- Peter Sarsgaard as Gene Carson, a sky marshal
- Sean Bean as Capt. Marcus Rich, a pilot for Aalto Airlines
- Kate Beahan as Stephanie, a flight attendant for Aalto Airlines
- Matt Bomer as Eric
- Amanda Brooks as Irene
- Jesse Burch as Row 19 Male Passenger
- Erika Christensen as Fiona
- Assaf Cohen as Ahmed
- Shane Edelman as Mr. Loud
- David Farkas as Steward
- Stephanie Faracy as Anna
- Mary Gallagher as Mrs. Loud
- Christopher Gartin as Mike
- Gavin Grazer as FBI Agent
- Lois Hall as Main Deck Grandma
- John Benjamin Hickey as David Pratt, Kyle's deceased husband
- Michael Irby as Obaid
- Jana Kolesarova as Claudia
- Forrest Landis as Rhett Loud
- Tonje Larsgard as Flight Attendant
- Haley Ramm as Brittany Loud
- Greta Scacchi as Lisa
- Judith Scott as Estella
- Brent Sexton as Elias
- Fred Tungulsten as Jordan
- Kirk B. R. Woller as Grunick
Production
Development
Casting
Schwentke said that to make Flightplan as realistic as possible, he wanted naturalistic, subdued performances. One example was Peter Sarsgaard, whom he described as an actor "who can all of a sudden become a snake uncoiling". First-time actress Marlene Lawston was cast as Foster's character's daughter Julia. Sean Bean was cast to subvert his typecasting as a villain and mislead audiences into thinking he was part of the villainous plot.[4] The director also picked each of the 300 passengers through auditions.[6]
Filming
Schwentke described Flightplan as a "slow boiling" thriller, where the opening is different from the faster ending parts. The director added that sound was used to put audiences "off-kilter".[4]
The art direction team had to build all the interiors and the cockpit of the fictional E-474 from scratch, basing both the interior design and layout on the
To allow for varied camera angles, the set had many tracks for the camera dolly to move, and both the walls and the ceiling were built on hinges so they could easily be swung open for shooting. The design and colors tried to invoke the mood for each scene. For instance, a white room for "eerie, clinical, cold" moments, lower ceilings for claustrophobia, and wide open spaces to give no clues to the audience.[6] Most exterior scenes of the E-474 involve a model one-tenth of the aircraft's actual size, with the images being subsequently enhanced through computer-generated imagery. The explosion in the nose involved both life sized and scaled pieces of scenery. A one-half scale set of the avionics area was constructed to make the explosion and fireball look bigger.[4]
Music
The score for Flightplan was released September 20, 2005, on Hollywood Records. The music was composed and conducted by James Horner, and the disc contains eight tracks. Horner stated that film's score tried to mix the sound effects with "the emotion and drive of the music", and the instruments were picked to match the "feelings of panic" Kyle goes through. These included Gamelan instruments, prepared piano, and string arrangements. No brass instruments are used in the soundtrack.[4]
Reception
Box office
Flightplan opened at #1 in US and Canada, grossing $24.6 million in its opening weekend. It grossed $89,707,299 at the domestic box office and $133,680,000 overseas for a worldwide total of $223,387,299.[3] It also grossed $79,270,000 on DVD rentals.[citation needed]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 37% based on 179 reviews, with an average rating of 5.3/10. The site's critics consensus states: "The actors are all on key here, but as the movie progresses, tension deflates as the far-fetched plot kicks in."[8] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 53 out of 100 rating, based on 33 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[9] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade B+ on an A+ to F scale.[10]
Film historian Leonard Maltin in Leonard Maltin's 2012 Movie Guide (2011) described Flightplan as "suspenseful at first, this thriller becomes remote and un-involving; by the climax, it's just plain ridiculous."[11]
Aviation film historian Simon D. Beck in The Aircraft-Spotter's Film and Television Companion (2016) noted that Flightplan was careful in setting the scene. "The aircraft is a fictional mammoth airliner called the 'E-474', a double-deck
Controversy
The
Tommie Hutto-Blake, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, stated "Should there be another
See also
- Red Eye, another 2005 psychological thriller taking place during a flight
Notes
- The Lady Vanishes. It is also reminiscent of the 1950 British film So Long at the Fair.
References
- ^ "Synposis: 'Flightplan' (12A)." British Board of Film Classification, September 26, 2005. Retrieved: November 14, 2015.
- ^ "Flightplan (2005) - Financial Information".
- ^ a b "Box office: 'Flightplan' (2005)." Box Office Mojo. Retrieved: September 26. 2011.
- ^ a b c d e "In-Flight Movie: 'The Making of Flightplan'." Flightplan DVD, 2019.
- ^ "'Flightplan' looks like 'The Lady Vanishes'". Star Beacon. September 19, 2007. Retrieved March 3, 2022.
- ^ a b "Cabin Pressure: Designing the Aalto E-474." Flightplan DVD, 2019.
- ^ a b Beck 2016, p. 99.
- ^ "Flightplan (2005)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved June 21, 2020.
- ^ "Flightplan". Metacritic. Retrieved May 4, 2020.
- ^ "FLIGHTPLAN (2005) B+". CinemaScore. Archived from the original on December 20, 2018.
- ^ Maltin 2011. p. 472.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (September 22, 2005). "Flightplan movie review & film summary (2005)". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
- Christian Science Monitor. September 23, 2005.
- ^ a b c "Flight attendants hope to ground 'Flightplan'." Today, September 29, 2005. Retrieved: January 30, 2015.
Bibliography
- Beck, Simon D. The Aircraft-Spotter's Film and Television Companion. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 2016. ISBN 978-1-4766-2293-4.
- Maltin, Leonard. Leonard Maltin's 2012 Movie Guide. New York: Plume Books, 2011. ISBN 978-0-452-29735-7.
External links
- Flightplan at IMDb
- Flightplan at Box Office Mojo